


Shadow or song

by emocsibe



Series: Désespoir [3]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Angst, OR IS IT, Strangers to Lovers, Vampire Goodnight Robicheaux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27052039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emocsibe/pseuds/emocsibe
Summary: After a hundred and some years, Goodnight Robicheaux finds himself falling in love once again.
Relationships: Goodnight Robicheaux/Billy Rocks
Series: Désespoir [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974349
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Shadow or song

_ “He skips through the copses singing, _ _   
_ _ And his shadow dances along, _ _   
_ _ And I know not which I should follow, _ _   
_ __ Shadow or song!”  
  
Oscar Wilde - In the forest

The doorbell rings, one time, two times, then there’s a hesitant knock. Goodnight never has visitors as he never bothers to make friends, never goes out to seek company for the only one he desires is not within reach, and never will be. He also made it a habit that if he needs something he goes out and gets whatever is it he wants – he enjoys walking and he thanks civilization for inventing cars and trains, hell, even buses are a godsend when he wants to disappear for a few days. Few have his private phone number and even fewer would call him on it, but his address is not something he casually gives to people – maybe this is why he is surprised at the sounds of someone wishing to enter his place. He readies himself for whoever is so unfortunate to have found his door, is ready to tell them that he will not buy can openers that are wi-fi hotspots as well, and he is most certainly not interested in anything that is religious, thank you very much - but then, when he opens the door, mouth opening to form a less than friendly “Not interested, go away”, he finds himself facing a vision.

It is a vision, it must be, for it looks achingly familiar, a ghost of a past long gone.

It is Billy, with his sharp, sad eyes and dark hair – but he cannot be the same man. Not the one Goodnight buried in Rose Creek, in a town no map would ever again show, not the one he has mourned for centuries, no. He shakes his head and proceeds to shut the door, shut that improbable ghost out – tries to close it out of his days if his nights are already owned by memories and spirits that won’t return – but then the man catches the doorknob.

“Excuse me, are you Goodnight Robicheaux?”

The man asks, Billy’s voice asks and Goodnight finds himself jumping away from it, from him, from the notion that he has finally gone mad. He jumps and the man invites himself in, closes the door and turns to face Goodnight, looking almost as troubled as Goodnight is feeling. 

“Are you well…?”

Goodnight cannot answer, his throat is dry and suddenly he’s thirsty for more than blood or drinks, he’s thirsty for what he has been denied for over a hundred years – he crosses the few feet between them and rests his hands on the man’s arms, looking into familiar eyes, sea-dark and deep and Goodnight wants to drown in them as he drowned in Billy’s love, just as he did centuries ago.

“Billy, oh, Billy” Goodnight breathes without air in his lungs and his eyes fill with tears that refuse to fall but cling to his lashes stubbornly, clouding his vision of the beautiful man in front of him “Is it… Are you… Oh dear, Billy, you are here.”

Billy looks confused at that, it is clear on his face, in his eyes, that what Goodnight just said is foreign for him, and at that, a cold dread settles in Goodnight’s chest. He fears the seconds to come, fears the words to be said. 

“My name is not that” the man pales and something akin to fear lights in his eyes as he speaks, then he takes hold of Goodnight’s hands and pries them away from his shoulders. Goodnight cherishes the touch, but then his mind catches up and he recognises the words, what they mean, and what they  _ mean _ .

“Oh.”

His arms fall to his side and he walks to the couch, letting himself to sit down – which is more like a fall, but he gets on his ass and on the couch and he cannot ask for more, really –, and he buries his face in his hands for a moment. When he raises his head back up, to look at the man, his tears are gone, but he looks somehow older than a few seconds before. He has swallowed so much hurt during the years, he thinks, and he wonders how much more can he take before his courage will come and his pains will disappear along with his mockery of a life.

“Your name is Goodnight Robicheaux, right?” the man with Billy’s face asks, standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room, and Goodnight smiles – it is sad and broken, but it is a smile; after centuries without doing so, his face feels weird and he breaks even more knowing that it is only the voice and the visage that invites it, but the man to whom they belong is not Billy. He looks and sounds like his dead darling, but he is not him. Goodnight feels that he should be angry – at the world that it pulls such a cruel trick on him, at himself that he smiles when he should weep –, but the only thing he feels is a dry and coarse emptiness.

“I am. Sorry for this. I just lost” he starts, but the words get stuck in his throat, and he has to swallow them – tasting like bile and pain – before speaking again “I just lost someone close to me. You look an awful lot like him. I guess I’m just a bit shaken? Maybe I should see a professional because of it. Maybe this just proved that this ‘maybe’ is more like an ‘absolutely’, right?”

“Yeah. Probably that would be good” the man nods and tucks a strand of hair behind his left ear – so typically Billy it stabs Goodnight right in his heart and leaves a transparent wound that bleeds agony into his soul. 

“Anyways” he continues after a minute of stressed silence “I’m Aaron Wright, I wrote to you about a translation and you said we should meet today. You didn’t show up, so I called your assistant – Miss Campbell, I think? She told me where you live so we can agree on something. I’d like to apologise – I see why you needed time away from work.”

Aaron looks confident standing in the open room, but Goodnight sees the way his thumb scratches at his middle finger on his left hand, sees how his eyes glance around the room but never stray away from Goodnight for long. He is nervous – or, Goodnight corrects himself, Billy used to act like this when he was nervous. 

“Yeah. I’m sorry, too, I should have pulled my head outta my ass a long time ago. He’s not coming back. Now, maybe you won’t either. I bet you can find a translator who‘s less insane.” Goodnight shakes his head and stands up, legs numb – really, everything is numb – and motions for the man to follow him as he goes to the kitchen area. Aaron follows but the guilty frown does not disappear from his face.

“I understand how such a loss might feel, and I clearly interrupted you. I wish Miss Campbell told me not to disturb you today.” 

Goodnight looks up and now, he offers a true smile that hurts but that soothes his pains as well. He reaches into a cupboard and pulls out a tray, woven from palm leaves and dyed black, blue lines breaking the dark base, holding a few dozen coffee pads. He holds it closer to Aaron, and asks “Coffee?”

“No, thank you. I should be leaving.”

Goodnight’s hands shake as he refills the water tank, then he waits for the water to boil and he feels his emotions boil, too. 

“I didn’t tell her. But, you are here now. We could as well talk about why you came here, it sure as hell won’t give him back, but it will take my mind off of the loss I guess. Trying won’t harm anyone and at least you’ll have whatever needs translating translated.”

“If it is truly not an inconvenience for you, I’d gladly accept” Aaron offers the answer along with a smile, and Goodnight’s heart throbs at the sight. Billy – no, Aaron – is beautiful. Twice as much when he is happy. 

“Not at all. Maybe this will help, who knows, right? So. What about the coffee now that you’re staying?”

“Now I accept, thank you.”

They talk business, then they part ways but before Aaron leaves, he writes his phone number in Goodnight’s small notebook that contains fourteen names and numbers. Goodnight wonders what Aaron’s reaction would be if he knew that out of fourteen, only six numbers were in use and only six people were still alive. He feels old all of a sudden, truly, really feels all the centuries crushing him, choking him. Aaron leaves with a smile and Goodnight curls up in the kitchen with a goddamned bloodbag in his hand, not caring to get a glass or dry his tears before having his dinner. He finishes and tosses the bag on the floor, then sprawls out next to it on the ground and falls asleep, marble cold against his face and fever-like dreams hot against his forehead. When he wakes, his hair is a bloody mess that sticks together badly and his right foot is numb. He feels like he deserves both. He does not cry – he starts working on Aaron’s book - a book about a group of wild west vigilantes. Goodnight cries as he starts seeing his old friends in the characters, as he reads about the main character who is so broken, and utterly loved by his companion. It tears open even more wounds than Aaron’s sudden appearance and his resemblance to Billy, and Goodnight reads on. He loves it.

Aaron returns a week later to check on his progress, but as he stands in the living room, thumb scratching against his middle finger, Goodnight knows that there’s something he’s not talking about. Seeing him in his flat, sitting at the very desk Billy’s candle stands on, is a visage that fuck with his head in the most disturbing way possible - and the weak man Goodnight is, he succumbs to the temptation to get to know the man. 

At first they talk about the book, and Aaron seems lost when talking about his motivations to write - he tells Goodnight that he’s been having strange dreams since he was four years old and after they became too much, his therapist told him to write about these dreams, and somewhere down the line, Aaron formed a story around them. He grows silent then, ducks his head and tells Goodnight to talk about his adventures, while looking at the paintings and photographs lining the walls.

“I’ve collected these hoping that one day I could show them to Billy’ Goodnight says and he sees Aaron flinch on his seat at the name, just like he did the first time. “But the dead never return. Now they are simply here to give me something to do when I realise this. Dusting is the best cure for heartache and loss” he rolls his eyes “, ten out of ten psychologists would recommend.” 

Aaron laughs at that, then listens as Goodnight recounts some of his more notable adventures and his laughter continues. By the time they decide to break their storytelling to get some tea it is already evening and Aaron apologises for staying too long, and Goodnight tells him not to talk shit, he is welcome. After a second of silence he adds that Aaron is welcome to visit him anytime, not just when he wishes to check on his progress, and Aaron accepts. He lights up when Goodnight makes them tea, then tells the man that it is his favourite. Tea spills from Goodnight’s mug as his hands shake, because it was Billy’s favourite as well, and there are simply too many uncanny similarities there. He pulls himself together and smiles at Aaron until he’s gone. After that, Goodnight sits in silence, with the remnants of his cold tea forgotten on the coffee table, and lets his tears fall again. 

**

In the following months Goodnight realises that he most probably will never be able to look at Aaron and not see Billy in him. He also realises that even though it’s not Billy that keeps visiting him, he is happy, and he is steadily befriending the man - and if his heart whispers that maybe he is also falling in love, well, he hasn’t listened to that old and decrepit thing since Rose Creek. He knows loving Aaron wouldn’t be healthy, and most importantly, wouldn’t be fair to Aaron - he deserves someone to love him for himself, and not for the ghost of a dead man.

**

Time goes on, and after a few months of slowly building friendship, they start going out on small dates - Aaron calls them that and Goodnight accepts and cradles to word to his heart, just as precious as wrong. Aaron flirts with him, takes his hand when they walk and smiles at him more than before. Sometimes there’s a confused look to Aaron though, one that sometimes borders on sad, but it is always quick to disappear. Aaron says he’s things he’s dealing with and Goodnight - also dealing with a lot, still - knows it best to let it go. 

On a notable day, Aaron leans closer to Goodnight when they part after such a date, and presses a teasing kiss to Goodnight’s cheek, and offers him a small and teasing smile. When Goodnight is still, his mind reminding him of how wrong this is - but he’s been craving it for so long - anything from Billy. Anything to let him remember him, his kiss, his warmth, his  _ love _ … And with that he pushes Aaron away, and he thinks he even apologises before running up the stairs - maybe he’s even a bit faster than an average human, and he should be more cautious about that, damn it - but now it can go to hell. His nature, his everything can go and rot because he is a good man, he’s a decent one, and Aaron still deserves someone else. Someone better. Someone not mourning his look-alike to this day while taking advantage of his affections.

Aaron doesn’t follow, but he asks for another date, and Goodnight accepts. He will ask Aaron to cool it down, to stop trying with him when they meet, and hopefully it will be enough to lessen his guilt. 

**

They agree to a date in his flat, and Goodnight is more than okay with that - he feels faint and ready to run, and maybe he’s less likely to do that while home, right? So he prepares Billy’s favourite tea for Aaron and waits. He waits and for some reason, that ten minutes until Aaron is scheduled to arrive feels like a hundred years, and Goodnight almost flies out of his skin when the knock on his door finally comes. 

He lets the man in and watches as he deposits his jacket on the back of the sofa as always, then sits down in one of the armchairs that Goodnight has come to think of as Aaron’s since his sixth visit. 

Goodnight is ready to speak, ready to get things out of his chest, but he hesitates, There is something up with Aaron, he can tell, something that makes the man nervous and shaken. So before he could say anything, ruin his friend’s day even more than whatever is on his mind, he fetches the tea and pushes Aarons’s favourite mug into his hands. 

“What’s with the odd mood today?” He asks after a while, and it is only due to a good timing on his part that Aaron doesn’t have a mouthful of tea to choke on. He still lets out a weak, surprised cough, and then looks away from Goodnight with a slight frown on his face. 

“Remember when we met?” He asks, and his voice is so familiar, and those words as well, and Goodnight almost tears up. 

“How could I forget?” 

It’s wrong, different from an answer he gave long decades ago, but he can’t call Aaron ‘cher’.

“Remember all the dust?” Aaron’s voice shakes as he asks, but when it’s out, he has such a hopeful look in his eyes, it almost hurts Goodnight to have to think instead of a positive answer. 

And at that, Goodnight feels confused. He frowns and tries to remember if his house was dusty, but he thinks it wasn’t. He usually cleans like a maniac, and if there’s dust behind the cupboard, well, Aaron surely has not seen any of it. 

“I’m sorry? What dust?”

“In your wine. In my water. Everywhere. You complained about it endlessly after a day in that hovel.” Aaron says, and the ground shifts under Goodnight, because there was indeed dust. A lot of it, and really, it was everywhere - but not when he met Aaron. It was when he met Billy. He slumps down onto the couch and Aaron, as merciless as he’s never been before, continues on. “You said that only my blood didn’t have any in it, that it was clean and warm and you wanted more. So you came with me when I left that dusty town. Do you remember?”

Goodnight stares, because what else could he do? He stares and feels as his tears start to fall, as they glide to his open mouth, but he doesn’t care. The whole world is shaking, and he shakes with it.

“When we first met and you called me ‘Billy’...” Aaron says, and joins Goodnight on the couch, leaning towards him as if pressed by an invisible weight. “I almost asked you how you knew. I almost asked, how could a stranger call me a name I’ve been referred to in my dreams ever since they started plaguing my sleep. And then I looked at you and you were so familiar… Even with your hair longer now, and you smiling so rarely, I recognised you from the same dreams, and I had to wonder if that’s what they were, after all, if dreams could… Do something like this. But I have to say something, I can't keep on pretending like that other life didn't happen.”

“Cher, I don’t understand” Goodnight lies and while he has caught the implication in Aaron’s words, he refuses to believe them. Why would he, he thinks and shakes his head as if in a stupor when Aaron takes his hand in his. 

“I think I remember. My life before this - I think I remember it, always had. I just didn’t know that it was truly real, but you are here, and you are just as I remember” he says and Goodnight can see the desperation in his eyes. Aaron is honest, and he is also scared, Goodnight can see that, and he does understand why. 

“I also have a scar… And no reason for why I got it. It has been on my skin since I was born - right where that bullet hit me. Up in that tower” Aaron continues even though Goodnight’s fingers are squeezing his hands so strongly they pale, and Goodnight actually feels like fainting. He has told so many things about Billy to Aaron to answer some of his questions, but he never told him how Billy died. He just couldn’t. And now… How does Aaron know…?

“I remember being cold even though the day was hot… Remember your flask, the one with the lily and the black leather wrap. I got that for you in Texas when your old one broke. You said you loved it. Then you got the matching lapel pins, too.”

“Billy… I can’t believe this - Aaron, I… Please. Please have mercy on me.”

“Goody - you recognised me all these months ago. Please, look at me and know that I know. I remember. And I still love you so much - maybe even more now.” 

They are both silent for a few moments, and then Goodnight lets out a small sob, a broken sound that turns into slow, silent crying a heartbeat later. He cries and leans onto Billy’s shoulder, and he holds him close and there’s that strong beat under his skin, the one he wished for for more than a hundred years to feel again. It’s there, strong as ever. There are fingers carding through his hair and he loves it, loves Billy, and yet, he can’t stop his tears.

“I know I’m not like I used to be, but maybe we could… I know you don’t like Aaron. But you still talked about me with such devotion, I hoped…”

“I liked Aaron just fine. Too well. But he deserved better. I didn’t want to replace you, Billy. That would have been hardly fair to either of us. But Billy. Billy, you are here…” 

“Well, I can safely say that this Aaron guy wouldn’t mind sharing with me, if it’s your affection that’s being shared” Billy laughs, and cradles Goodnight’s face in his palm. Goodnight still has tears in his eyes and on his cheeks, but it doesn’t stop Billy from leaning in and kissing him, and Goodnight feels his heart give a weak, bloodless jump at that. That kiss still feels like a wonder, doubly so now, and it tastes like Billy’s favourite tea, just like back in the early 1870s. Bit more sugary maybe, but Goodnight doesn’t mind. 

“If Aaron is sure” Goodnight starts “then I’d be honored to be yours again, cher.”

“As I yours” Billy smiles, and rests his forehead against Goodnight’s. 

That night, Billy stays, and for the first time in over a hundred years, Goodnight feels warm when sleep finds him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not exactly satisfied with this one, but if I sit any longer on this series, it's gonna bite my ass.


End file.
